Generally, regarding hair, many people want growth or growth-suppression of hair depending on the site of the hair. For example, not a few people have a problem with regard to hair such as thinning hair or baldness caused by stress, genetics or the like. In addition, some people feel troublesome in so-called depilation.
It is known that there are two kinds of hairs, i.e. a hair which depends on a male hormone and a hair which does not depend thereon. For example, it is believed that male alopecia in which baldness or receding of hairline occurs in the region between the front of head and the top of head, beard, the hair at legs and underarm hair are deeply related to male hormones, whereas the hair in the temporal region of head, hair at the back of head, eyebrows, and eyelashes are less relevant to male hormones (Non-Patent Document 1: Ebling F. J. et al., Clin. Endocrinol Metab., Vol. 15, 319-339 (1986), Non-Patent Document 2: Sternn K. S. et al., Physiol. Rev., Vol. 81, 449-494 (1993)).
Thus, hair-growth agents and hair growth-suppressing agents which regulate growth of hair have been developed from various aspects (Patent Document 1: JP 2005-206536 A, Patent Document 2: JP 2006-8657 A).
Recently, for the search of hair growth agents and hair growth-suppressing agents, there have been used a method of a cell culture of hair follicles of humans, mice or rats, or a method of an organ culture of the hair follicles because these methods can rapidly and conveniently evaluate or screen these agents (Patent Document 3: JP 11-49647 A; Patent document 4: JP 2002-62289 A; Non-Patent Document 3: T. Jindo et al., The Journal of Dermatology, Vol. 20, 756-762, 1993; Non-Patent Document 4: Makoto Uzuka & Tika Souzawa, Nippi Kaishi, 104(8), 979-987, 1994; Non-Patent Document 5: M. P. Philpott et al., Journal of Cell Science, 97, 463-471, 1990). Screening through an organ culture of hair follicles of humans is highly reliable in data but has a difficulty in obtaining hair follicles of humans and thus is not suitable for mass screening. Although hair follicles of mice and rats are always available, screening through an organ culture of hair follicles of mice and rats is also not suitable for mass screening in view of animal protection because the method uses laboratory animals.